The poll suggests the race tightened after Mandel emerged this month from a six-way GOP primary.

In a Monday survey of 500 likely Ohio voters, each were chosen by 43 percent of the respondents.

Eleven percent said they are undecided; 3 percent responded that they prefer another candidate.

Brown led Mandel 44 percent to 40 percent in Rasmussen's February survey. Both polls had 4.5 percent margins of error.

The national polling firm is often affiliated with Republicans -- a point that Brown spokesman Justin Barasky emphasized Tuesday when reacting to the results.

"Much like Josh Mandel can't be trusted for consistently peddling wildly inaccurate claims about Sen. Brown, this is a Republican poll by a notoriously unreliable Republican pollster and should not be taken seriously," Barasky said via email.

Mandel spokesman Travis Considine declined to comment on the poll. But Ohio Republican Party spokesman Chris Maloney said the poll "corresponds to previous Republican, Democrat and independent surveys which illustrate an increasingly competitive race for U.S. Senate."

Maloney added: "The fact that Sherrod Brown can only muster 43 percent of the vote in a state where his name has appeared on ballots for thirty-eight years, proves that he's clearly out of touch with Ohio voters."

Previous polls by other groups showed Brown with wider leads. Quinnipiac University had Brown ahead of Mandel 48 percent to 35 percent in mid-February. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm, put Brown up by 11 points after a survey earlier that month.

Follow Us

cleveland.com is powered by Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and Northeast Ohio Media Group. All rights reserved (About Us).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC.